Marcia DeCoster at Bead Society Meeting - DeeeLightful!

Marcia DeCoster

Sinced I waxed so poetic about it last week before it even happened, I thought I'd pass on the summary of the Northern California Bead Society meeting that I wrote for my own blog.

The evening of Marcia's talk was just...wonderful. I attended my first Northern California Bead Society meeting where Marcia DeCoster was the featured speaker, and she gave a wonderful talk. She had just wrapped up the new and enormously popular Beading by the Bay retreat in San Francisco, and BSNC was able to book her for the talk.

In addition to providing an entertaining timeline of her beading career, she spoke very comfortably and casually about developing core skills in beadweaving, how to structure your environment to foster creativity, the importance of reusable components, where to find inspiration and influences for your work, the notion of exploration, and capturing ideas as they are born.

Marcia finds that her best inspiration for new designs comes when she is away from home, surrounded by other creative people, and able to focus on new ideas.

A collaboration between Marcia DeCoster and Heather Trimlett

Some of the beaded eye candy Marcia brought.

As a newbie to the seed beading world it was fascinating to me to see her work in person (it is both richly complex and beautiful), and I can hardly imagine how some of her weaving patterns come to be. Having at least dipped my toes a little into the sead beady sea I was able to understand some of the terms she used, but many are still Greek to me. I was grateful to have done the little bit I have done, or I'm sure I would have been completely lost, yet still awed.

Amazing!

Keep your eyes on her website this fall, when registration for 48 lucky beaders opens for next year's Beading by the Bay retreat, featuring instructors Sherry Serafini, Rachel Nelson-Smith, and Marcia.

Marcia, Little Hoot, and Rachel.
Visit Marcia's blog to read the story about Little Hoot.

Mary Ann, I did ask her about her hands, and she said that yes, like many other beaders, she has suffered with some pain. She treats it by doing the standard recommended exercises, taking advil, and taking a rest from beading. She said she doesn't bead as much as people would think, which is no surprise given her involvement in all of the other aspects of her beading business.

There you have it! A DeeeeLightful evening.

Bead Society Meeting tonight...with Marcia DeCoster!

I'm so excited about tonight's Bead Society of Northern California gathering! I've been a member for over a year, but have never managed to make it to a meeting, held over 50 miles away. But tonight, superstar Marcia DeCoster is the guest and she will give a presentation on "The Road to Opulence: My Journey With Beads". I know it's going to be hugely inspiring.

I've just taken the plunge into the seed bead world myself, and suspect this is going to be a fascinating evening. Marcia just finished teaching the annual Beading by the Bay weekend workshop, a popular event I could only hope to join one day. I may have to very soon, however, since next year the 3 instructors will be Marcia, Rachel Nelson-Smith, and Sherry Serafini. Rachel is an extremely prolific and talented local bead weaver with a great book and another "in the oven", and I'm proud to call her my friend as well. We're driving to the meeting together and I'm taking my copies of Marcia's and Rachel's books to be autographed.

Anyway, I'd love to share this experience with you! I will definitely have my camera and will take lots of sparkly pictures, but let me ask you this. If there was one question you could ask of either Marcia or Rachel about beading, what would it be?